Albrecht Dürer [antikvár]

Dürer: a portrait of the artist We are more than five hundred years away from Diirer's birth. (He was bom on 21st May 1471, in Nuremberg.) Those five hundred years may seem long or short, according to one's viewpoint or mood. When they seem short, it appears to be possible to understand Dürer and an imaginary conversation with him becomes feasible. When they seem long the world he lived in and his consciousness of it appear so remote that no dialogue is possible. Dürer was the first painter to be obsessed by his own image. No other before him made so many self-portraits. Among his earliest works is a silverpoint drawing of himself aged thirteen. The drawing demonstrates that he was a prodigy - and that he found his own appearance startling and unforgettable. One of the things that made it startling was probably his awareness of his own genius. AU his self-portraits reveal pride. It is as though one of the elements of the masterpiece which he intends each time to create is the look of genius that he is observing in his own eyes. In this, his self-portraits are the antithesis of Rembrandt's. Why does a man paint himself? Among many motives, one is the same as that which prompts any man to have his portrait painted. It is to produce evidence, which will probably outlive him, that he once existed. His look will remain, and the double meaning of the word "look" - signifying both his appearance and his gaze - suggests the mystery or enigma which is contained in that thought. His look interrogates us who stand before the portrait, trying to imagine the artist's life. As I recall these two self-portraits of Dürer, one in Madrid and the other in Munich, I am aware of being - along with thousands of others - the imaginary spectator whose interest Dürer assumed about 485 years ago. Yet at the same time I ask myself how many of the words I am writing could have conveyed their present meaning to Dürer. We approach so close to his face and expression that it is hard to believe that a large part of his experience must Self-Portrait at the Age of Thirteen, 1484. Silverpoint drawing on primed paper, 27.5 x 19.6 cm. Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina. It is inscribed by the artist at top right: "Dz Hhab jch aws eim Spigell nach / mir selbs kunterfet jm 1484 Jar / do ich noch ein kint was / Albrecht Dürer". The words mean: "My 'Konterfei' (cf. John Berger's essay, p. 12) drawn from a mirror in the year 1484, when I was still a child", and eloquently reveal the young Diirer's pride. When he drew what was in fact one of the earliest self-portraits in northern Europe, he had recently been apprenticed to his father. Dürer gave greater attention to the self-por-trait than any of his contemporaries.